Costume National

Ennio Capasa feels fall is the season when Costume National truly shines. As far as he's concerned, a man's ideal state in summer involves no clothes at all (not such a bad idea really, given the astonishing heat wave that seems to descend on Milan every June). So the challenge he set himself with his latest collection was to create clothing that would allow a man to dress and yet feel naked at the same time. He was most obviously successful with gauzy-silk knits, as well as a shirt in linen netting. Less practically, he sometimes chose to do away with shirts altogether, showing his body-cleaving Costume jackets with just a scarf or a waistcoat.

He also relaxed the tightness of that signature silhouette a little: The collection's key item was an elasticized-waist shirt jacket, and the trousers it was paired with were full and pleated. Pants that rolled up and fastened with tabs, meanwhile, were positively frisky compared to the designer's customary hard-urban edge (they were even worn with sandals!). But the collection's major concession to summer was the silvery glaze on fabrics; it suggested the sparkle of sun on water oras Capasa might prefer us to think of itthe sheen of bare skin.